| Prelude
Greeting and Welcome
Lighting of the Candles
Hymn of Invocation – What God Ordains Is Always Good (LSB 760)
What God ordains is always good: His will is just and holy. As He directs my life for me, I follow meek and lowly. My God indeed in ev’ry need Knows well how He will shield me; To Him, then, I will yield me.
What God ordains is always good: He never will deceive me; He leads me in His righteous way, And never will He leave me. I take content what He has sent; His hand that sends me sadness Will turn my tears to gladness.
What God ordains is always good: His loving thought attends me; No poison can be in the cup That my physician sends me. My God is true; each morning new I trust His grace unending, My life to Him commending.
What God ordains is always good: He is my friend and Father; He suffers naught to do me harm Though many storms may gather. Now I may know both joy and woe; Someday I shall see clearly That He has loved me dearly.
What God ordains is always good: Though I the cup am drinking Which savors now of bitterness, I take it without shrinking. For after grief God gives relief, My heart with comfort filling And all my sorrow stilling.
What God ordains is always good: This truth remains unshaken. Though sorrow, need, or death be mine, I shall not be forsaken. I fear no harm, for with His arm He shall embrace and shield me; So to my God I yield me.
+ Preparation +
Invocation P: In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. C: Amen.
Opening Sentences – Psalm 80:7, 18 P: Restore us, O God of hosts; C: let Your face shine, that we may be saved! P: Then we shall not turn back from You; C: give us life, and we will call upon Your name!
Confession and Absolution
Silence is kept for meditation and reflection.
P: Holy and gracious God, C: I confess that I have sinned against You this day. Some of my sin I know—the thoughts and words and deeds of which I am ashamed—but some is known only to You. In the name of Jesus Christ I ask forgiveness. Deliver and restore me that I may rest in peace. P: Almighty God in His mercy has given His Son to die for you and for His sake forgives you all your sins. As a called and ordained servant of Christ, and by His authority, I therefore forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. C: Amen. P: May the Lord, who has begun this good work in us, bring it to completion in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. C: Amen.
+ Word +
Introit P: Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever! C: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. P: This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. C: This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. All: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen P: Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!
Salutation and Prayer of the Day P: The Lord be with you. C: And also with you. P: Let us pray. Merciful Father, in Your abundant love You redeemed us from our sin and restored us as Your own children in Christ. As You have crowned us with love and mercy, keep us in this grace and favor that we may strive to complete the race and receive from Your hand the crown of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. C: Amen.
First Reading – Job 4:1-9 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said: “If one ventures a word with you, will you be impatient? Yet who can keep from speaking? Behold, you have instructed many, and you have strengthened the weak hands. Your words have upheld him who was stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees. But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed. Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope? “Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same. By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.
P: This is the Word of the Lord. C: Thanks be to God.
Epistle – Philippians 3:4–14 If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness, under the law blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
P: This is the Word of the Lord. C: Thanks be to God.
Holy Gospel – Matthew 21:33-46 P: The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the twenty-first chapter. C: Glory to You, O Lord.
[Jesus said:] “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.
P: This is the Gospel of the Lord. C: Praise to You, O Christ.
Apostles' Creed I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life + everlasting. Amen.
Children’s Hymn – Blest Are They (AGPS 74)
Blest are they, the poor in spirit; Theirs is the kingdom of God. Blest are they, full of sorrow; They shall be consoled. Refrain
Refrain: Rejoice and be glad! Blessed are you, holy are you Rejoice and be glad! Yours is the kingdom of God!
Blest are they, the lowly ones; They shall inherit the earth. Blest are they who hunger and thirst; They shall have their fill. Refrain
Children’s Message – Janet Leet
Hymn of the Day – Jesus, Refuge of the Weary (LSB 423)
Jesus, refuge of the weary, Blest Redeemer, whom we love, Fountain in life’s desert dreary, Savior from the world above: Often have Your eyes, offended, Gazed upon the sinner’s fall; Yet upon the cross extended, You have borne the pain of all.
Do we pass that cross unheeding, Breathing no repentant vow, Though we see You wounded, bleeding, See Your thorn-encircled brow? Yet Your sinless death has brought us Life eternal, peace, and rest; Only what Your grace has taught us Calms the sinner’s deep distress.
Jesus, may our hearts be burning With more fervent love for You; May our eyes be ever turning To behold Your cross anew Till in glory, parted never From the blessèd Savior’s side, Graven in our hearts forever, Dwell the cross, the Crucified.
Sermon
Offertory | 
